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janefair's review
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
tacomaven's review
5.0
Mysterious, thoughtful, great art (love the blues and oranges), a story of remembering yourself.
ederwin's review
4.0
A woman decides one day to just walk away from her life. For a short while anyway. A quite simple story, but told in an interesting non-linear way. It give me a strange déjâ-vu feeling, as though I'd seen this story before in some French film, though I haven't, as well fed fuel to my own desire to just walk away, for a while.
museoffire's review
4.0
This is a quiet look at the turning point in a middle aged woman's life when she spontaneously abandons her family to explore the world she's let pass her by while she's spent the best years of her life taking care of other people.
Lulu is in her forties living in the French countryside. Wife to an ungrateful drunk of a husband who's favorite phrase is "I told you so" and a mother to spunky, puckish twin boys and a teenage daughter. While out on a fruitless job interview in a nearby town she is suddenly seized with the notion that she should spend the night. One night turns into two, two to three and before long her friends and family have no idea where she is or what she might be doing. That Lulu is, for the most part, just as clueless is part of the quiet magic in this gentle, thoughtful graphic novel.
We begin at a late evening gathering of Lulu's friends who are trying to piece together Lulu's journey. They're caring for Lulu's children in her absence and working out what led to Lulu's current circumstances. There's a wonderful sense of community and family between everyone. No one is really angry at Lulu in fact as we delve deeper into what a bore her husband is and what a thankless job she's really had all these years we can see that they even understand and empathize with her need to escape. The story is told primarily in flashbacks as we see the day Lulu "disappears" and follow her story until we arrive back at the same night her friends have gathered together.
Etienne Davodeau's color palette is part of what makes this beautiful book so hypnotizing. He never strays very far from rich browns and oranges with the occasional deep blue of an ocean or the night sky. Lulu wears this weirdly adorable ill fitting orange sweater that makes her appear by turns homeless but then strangely youthful. There's also sharp injections of deep black, her daughters black, jagged hair and the black shirt she's always wearing create a great contrast to Lulu's warmer look, you can see how hard her daughter tries to distance herself.
The translation is excellent as well, this isn't a text heavy graphic novel but what there is has a wonderful rhapsodic quality to it.
I really loved this. One of those terrific reading experiences where the only thing that really happens is a moment in someone's life yet its the most engrossing thing you've ever seen in the moment you experience it for yourself.
Lulu is in her forties living in the French countryside. Wife to an ungrateful drunk of a husband who's favorite phrase is "I told you so" and a mother to spunky, puckish twin boys and a teenage daughter. While out on a fruitless job interview in a nearby town she is suddenly seized with the notion that she should spend the night. One night turns into two, two to three and before long her friends and family have no idea where she is or what she might be doing. That Lulu is, for the most part, just as clueless is part of the quiet magic in this gentle, thoughtful graphic novel.
We begin at a late evening gathering of Lulu's friends who are trying to piece together Lulu's journey. They're caring for Lulu's children in her absence and working out what led to Lulu's current circumstances. There's a wonderful sense of community and family between everyone. No one is really angry at Lulu in fact as we delve deeper into what a bore her husband is and what a thankless job she's really had all these years we can see that they even understand and empathize with her need to escape. The story is told primarily in flashbacks as we see the day Lulu "disappears" and follow her story until we arrive back at the same night her friends have gathered together.
Etienne Davodeau's color palette is part of what makes this beautiful book so hypnotizing. He never strays very far from rich browns and oranges with the occasional deep blue of an ocean or the night sky. Lulu wears this weirdly adorable ill fitting orange sweater that makes her appear by turns homeless but then strangely youthful. There's also sharp injections of deep black, her daughters black, jagged hair and the black shirt she's always wearing create a great contrast to Lulu's warmer look, you can see how hard her daughter tries to distance herself.
The translation is excellent as well, this isn't a text heavy graphic novel but what there is has a wonderful rhapsodic quality to it.
I really loved this. One of those terrific reading experiences where the only thing that really happens is a moment in someone's life yet its the most engrossing thing you've ever seen in the moment you experience it for yourself.
strikingthirteen's review
3.0
Lulu goes for a job interview and knows she's not going to be getting the job. Instead of heading home she just wanders off. She falls in love, she makes friends, she takes a vacation of sorts from her life. Never mind her husband and children and her friends back home. It's probably something everyone has thought of doing at some point and this graphic novel outlines some great times Lulu has as well as some not so great ones. On her family's end as well. It was almost like a vacation reading it as well. Very breezy and open art style, much in the way that Lulu just sort of blows around like a leaf in the wind through this little sojourn of sorts.
nezbots's review
2.0
I'm all for Lulu getting away from her husband, but she's... kinda boring. And also... she basically comes back at the end? Like, yeah, it'll be different now! Nope.
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